Plots and Square Metre Planting
Illustration by Cecilia Macaulay
There are many places on the net, in books and in practice that use methods for growing and harvesting your own fruit and vegetables. In particular the following places focus on supplying enough food for particular needs and size requirements. This is just a very small touch on some places to get your juices flowing for growing your own things.
These people have many methods, but two that can get you started on seasonal harvesting and correct sizing for plots. If you want to check out their gardens visit the website and see their locations.
Growing your own vegetables is the single most
important step to a sustainable, healthy life. When
vegetables are grown at home they are fresh and free
of chemicals, eliminating food miles and cutting CO²
emissions by up to 30%. It takes a few hours of work
a week.
The concept of the Mini Plot Harvest is that in 40 square metres you can grow up to 472kgs of vegetables, which is enough to serve 4 people for the year. It is based in 4 garden beds and has a yielding calendar with rotations and suggestions for planting.
This method is used in the mini plot garden, but it goes into the development of the matrix sewing system and the advantages that can be gained through yielding by this method.
These people sell great kits to get you started, and can also be really useful for people renting. They either have options for just the edging/container, or to fill it as well with the weed matting and organic soil, and then also get you started with the optional VEG irrigation system, then fill it up with seasonal organic produce.
Take a look here for options and lots of choices.
**The Permaculture Home Garden**
This is a book that I just love and am hoping to base a lot of my new place on these methods. There is a great website that does a review on the book. The first sentence of the book is:
“This is a book about saving the planet and living to be a hundred, while throwing very impressive dinner parties and organising other creatures to do most of the work. It is a book about a very different style of growing food.”
So you can imagine this book is filled with great ideas and planting styles. The best things about the book is that it eliminates most of the permaculture language and is really easy to read with out knowing everything about the topic to begin with.
Other methods:
There are of course methods for you to create your own harvesting pattern according to your families likes and dislikes, location and seasonal produce. Other web sites that I have found some great tips on include:
- Send me Seeds Pip- which I have not joined but I think that I plan to when I get my new place up and running. There are planting tips and seasonal calendars, and really nice recipes (for seasonal produce). You can subscribe and they will send you seeds to plant at certain times of the year so that you are always growing to best potential for your harvesting.
- Gardenate- another website that sends you monthly emails to remind you what to plant and also what to get ready for the next month.
- Permaculture Institute - don’t forget you could always get intimate with Permaculture principles and work it out for your specific location and needs.
There are always great places overseas that are also doing these sorts of things to help developing countries:
Food Gardens Foundation in South Africa
Comments
Mom: Hi Di
Your blog is amazing, there is so so much to read I don’t know where to start! Just for today I am making more dog biscuits! I have read some vegie garden stuff and I can’t wait to start on mine, I’m sure it won’t be as good as yours but I want to give it a go!
Hope you are well, take care
love mom xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
